


No New World

by hauntedshoes



Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Confinement, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt No Comfort, Lost friendship, Psychological Horror, Whumptober 2020, if you see it as romantic then it's on you, just sadness, no gore no blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedshoes/pseuds/hauntedshoes
Summary: Whumptober prompts:4#, 11# and 31#After receiving an offer to participate in medical research at a lab owned by one of their wealthier friends family, James (AuthRight) and Jay (LibLeft) find themselves learning about a whole world outside our own and participate in trying to recreate it - even if they'll lose everything.
Relationships: Ancom & AuthRight
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	No New World

**Author's Note:**

> AuthRight - James  
> LibLeft - Jay  
> LibRight (mentioned) - Johnson (not the twitter 'cause I forgot it and don't actually use twitter, but it's a 'J' name so it works)
> 
> Jay uses 'they/them' rather than 'qui/quem' but this is because Jay and James are written a little differently than how I normally write them, for good reason as you'll see (or guess by the summary).

_“Wait, you’re saying that we have a way to replicate it exactly.”_

_“Exactly. Despite the tiny scale, it should work just as the real one works.”_

_“That was, awfully quickly put together. It’s such a marvel how nobody had really attempted this before!”_

_“Heh, most of them were scared of the World of Ideas ‘till now. But really, it’s easy to manipulate something that’s everywhere. Even when we don’t see it.”_

_“Then could have you at least made the box a little bigger? These are no more than cages, how are two people supposed to fit on both sides of this thing? Let alone one side?”_

_“Oh, come on, that’s way too many resources. They won’t even be in here that long, just enough time for them to adjust to the ‘climate’ then we’ll let them both back out. Plus, we can’t have anybody else wandering in and fucking up the testing once it’s started. Didn’t you say you wanted to see the World of Ideas on the smallest possible level, well, here it is, aren’t you happy?”_

_“Yeah well, I didn’t exactly expect the human aspect, you could have told me earlier.”_

_“What do you want me to do? Destroy the machine?”_

_“No, No, of course not.”_

_“Well, I’ll go look over the applications.”_

_“No need, I’ve already picked out our participants.”_

-

A Few Days Ago

James slammed the stack of paper on the cafeteria table and sighed. Neither of them had expected so much paper for what was likely just a needle going into their arms.

“Please check the boxes below indicating your agreement.” James squinted at the sheer stacks of paper. “Agreement? What these political questions doing on the consent forms?”

Jay looked toward James, who was clearly flustered after having to talk to Johnson for all that time. The weird twenty-somethings billionaire hadn’t offered them any help, or rather, he had for some reason thought ‘help’ had come in the form of them helping him or rather, his family’s expensive and pointless research.

Johnson had told them that as two fellow college students looking to cover their eating costs, then they could participate in some of their research trials. They were offering some decent pay too. Around $600 for the both of them if they got selected.

Again, if they got selected.

The paper implied that only two people out of everyone who had wanted to apply were going to be chosen. So the chance that the both of them would be picked was slim, to say the least. Surely they would need more than just two people for what was a medical trial? The lack of numbers made just as much sense as the political questions.

“Hey, wait, let me see that.” Jay practically snatched the paper out of James’s hands. That one bit of paper anyway.

“In times of crisis, safety becomes more important than civil liberties. What the fuck is this supposed to mean, and why are we supposed to answer this?” Jay tossed the paper back to James

“Hey, I know as well as you do, there’s a good fifty questions on this thing.”

“And each one of them as nonsense as the last…”

The two of them looked at each and burst out laughing. “Each one more nonsense than the last.”

James, with his frustration showing a little more visibly on his, tossed the rest of Jay’s forms over toward them.

“Go quickly, I think we’ve only got a few days to mail this back.”

“A few days? Mail? What is this the 1930s?”

“Geez, Jay, some people are just kinda backward.”

“But scientists? Doing research? Come on James. You know it makes no sense.”

“Hey, some people just feel comfortable with that, Jay, how wrong is it to like snail mail?”

“I guess not,” said Jay whilst grabbing a pen. “I just think it’s kind of weird.”

James and Jay had been roommates for a few months now. Beforehand, neither of them had really been the most sociable people. Jay was, in their own admittance, overwhelming. A ball of energy that made many acquittances but not many long term friends. James seemed to have the opposite problem. Most people regarded James as an ‘asshole’ but to put it in more fanciful words, ‘arrogant’ and ‘careless’. He wasn’t exactly the warmest person, and he had a reputation of being overly blunt would lose him, friends, fairly quickly. That and he was an obvious suck-up to authority which wasn’t exactly a good look when someone his age was supposed to rebel.

The two former loners had found each other, or rather, had been assigned dorms together. Well, it had kind of forced them to live together and of course, interact with each trouble. The two of them missing so much emotional contact over the years – the two of them clicked eventually.

James would put up with Jay’s jumpiness and need to bounce between topics. It looked much more like a delightful enthusiasm to him now, whereas Jay came to view James’s pretentiousness as him being informative, and even enduring.

That being said, for good friends who were learning to trust each other, neither of them discussed heavy topics. The time that they had done had often lead to boring conversations anyway. Both of them were outspoken people, but neither of them really had that strong a political leaning. At least it saved them from having arguments over it. Those kinds of things could break a friendship, with two people as hard to get along with as James and Jay it was lucky.

Then again, this was the reason that they were staring at the forms dumbfounded.

Someone who was at least a little more politically engaged would have answered these questions with ease. James and Jay were just sitting there semi-stumped. Jay, lacking the attention-span of his peer pretty much just ended up ticking the middle box halfway through. James was a little more persistent and eventually answered the way he honestly saw fit though when he looked back and finished, they all did look kind of boring.

“I thought this was a medical thing, what’s political shit got to do with my physical health?” James shuffled his papers before getting ready to put them in the envelope.

“Perhaps this isn’t a medical test at all! Maybe it’s the government trying to find someone!” Jay chimed in.

“Nah. These came from Johnson, remember, you know how rich and crazy he and his parents are.”

“Guess you have a point.”

“Now let’s get these to the post, give me your papers, Jay.”

Jay stuttered before nodding. They knew that they would probably get lost on campus again, so they weren’t going to attempt to deliver their own letter.

James took back the heavy stack of paper, now all in one buddle, “God, sure hope we get that food money,” he said as he left.

James had been far more worried about Jay’s health that he had realised. He had wished he had told them.

-

_“These two, really, but they clearly have nothing with either of the environments we’ve created.”_

_“Exactly, and they’re emotionally close at that.”_

_“But we were just testing if it worked, not trying to change people’s entire value systems! This will break them!”_

_“Not if we do this correctly. If it’s all well and good they won’t even notice that they’re belief systems are being forced to adapt. They’ll hang on because of that ignorance.”_

_“But you’re not just convincing them of some other perspective, or even brainwashing them! This is worse than that. They’ll be literal personifications.”_

_“Look, they’ll see each other through the entire thing, they’ll know what each other went through and that they aren’t enemies.”_

_“Even if it that is the case, how extreme political ideologies going to integrate back into society? They can’t even doubt themselves anymore. They’ll be trapped with whatever thoughts come to them in that cage you made!”_

_“Tsk. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we have to keep them here, then we will.”_

_“And for how long?”_

_“Not even I know this.”_

-

James was shuffling around with the map for the nth time. Neither he nor Jay had their drivers licence, and James wasn’t the type to trust technology too much.

Luckily, the facility was in the same town that the two of them have moved to so no need to get a bus, but unluckily it was in some weird, out of the way, forested place that wasn’t exactly easy to find. James had dragged Jay all the way to the bookstore to find a map of the area, not that Jay minded, they had still wanted to see more of the town, as much as they could during their college days.

“Ugh, Johnson really turned down the chance to drive us?” James whined.

“You’d think that a son from a billionaire family would have enough time on his hands. Guess he’s just that selfish, huh?” Jay replied.

“You know, I used to think that not all rich people were selfish like that, but I’m starting to have second thoughts.”

Jay smirked. “Ha, you know what, me too.”

James smiled back before turning back to his map, and his ordinary grouchy expression graced his face. “This better be worth it for the money, still can’t believe they actually picked us though.”

“Well, I can! It was just random, wasn’t it? I have a hard time believing they sorted through all those questions.”

“I’m not sure Jay, they were awfully sparse on the details of what this research experiment actually entails.”

“See, this is why I was scared at first!”

“Ugh, whatever.” James screwed up the map. “We need to get through this so we can fill the fridge.”

Jay, noticing how obviously tense their friend was, put their arm around James. With that, James stopped shivering, and the two of them continued to navigate themselves through the city outskirts.

The two of them with both of their brainpower combined managed to get through the area which was uncomfortably secretive for a research laboratory and reached a boxy grey building which seemed unusually small for the money that they were advertising.

“Still sure you trust Johnson?” Jay’s green eyes looked up at James.

“Uh, well, I…”

“Honestly this place looks like a meth lab, are you sure you want to go in there?”

James felt his throat close. He could keep pretending he was strong, but he really didn’t want to be here right now. However, despite his better judgements, he walked forward, pushing aside Jay to go and ring the doorbell.

He still wanted to trust Johnson, maybe because he wanted to be the rich boy’s friend or maybe he just had the right air of authority. That and he was still optimistic about filling his bank account. Optimistic enough to do something risky.

As he pressed his finger onto the rusty doorbell. A jaunty chime played – it sounded like some kind of nursery rhyme but missing out half of the notes. A man in a suit, a gold striped one, answered the door. He didn’t look much like a scientist.

With a panicked look behind him, he saw Jay hide behind a tree. James shot them a sceptical glance before turning back to the well-dressed man.

“Ah, are you James or Jay? Either way, we’re glad to have you here.”

James heisted, wondering if giving this man his name would really be the wisest decision. “Yes, I’m James,” he said, despite earlier suspicions.

“And Jay? Where is he?”

“I’ll just go and get them…”

He started backing away slowly before running toward the tree where he had seen Jay hiding. He pulled Jay by their hoodie.

“No, wait you can’t –”

“Come on, Jay, it’s fine, it really is!”

“I don’t trust the… you have to understand James…”

The man called out from afar, “Are you two done arguing? We can’t do this without two participants.”

James let go of Jay’s hoodie. “Say, how long will this, uh take?” He felt rude for asking questions.

“A couple of hours, providing you listen to our introduction.”

“Then we’ll be free to go, right?” Jay demanded.

“You’ll both be free to go.”

“Come on, Jay, what’s the worse he can do to us in a couple of hours?”

Jay wasn’t completely persuaded by his tone.

The man had vanished before they had the chance to reply, yet the door remained open.

-

_“They’re arriving! Make sure everything is clear for preparation!”_

_“Weren’t we going to have them stay the night, at least have them understand what was going to happen? You’re really expecting them to be ready for this the moment they tell them!”_

_“Uh, I’m planning to omit some parts…”_

_“Omit? Which parts? You are already changing all of our plans! And, frankly, you’re already starting to treat them as less than human…”_

_“They are going to be ideas, my associate, they’ll be much more than humans once we’re done with them.”_

_“You say that like they’re lucky.”_

_“Maybe they are.”_

-

James wasn’t surprised to find that this place was far larger on the inside than the outside.

It didn’t stop it from being a dull place, though. Most of it was grey, silvery metal - a strange electrical buzzing in his ears and also, somehow, in the air. For a laboratory, it didn’t really do much to fix the stereotypical image that James had in mind. There was nothing on the walls, no notices or regulations. No tables with anything on them, no lab equipment or even syringes scattered around.

The place didn’t seem to be sterilised either. James thought that these hospital places were supposed to be excessively clean, but this place seemed so dusty. It was a cramped corridor but one which seemed to stretch into the endless. What kind of research were they doing? There was still nothing to indicate on the paper that this was a psychological study though, James was still inclined to believe what it said.

“Welcome, welcome, Jay, James.” The man held out his hand as to invite the two of them to shake it. James complied and smiled. Jay folded their arms and shook their head.

“Can we hurry up? I don’t want to stay here longer than I have to,” Jay said.

The old man winced as he heard Jay’s snide words. “Well, I am under the requirement to tell you what exactly goes on here, what the trial will entail and your payment, although I’m assuming you both already know about that part.”

“Of course, we know about that payment!” Jay groaned.

“Yes, very good. Let me bring you to the experiment area, down the stairs, everyone.” He pointed to the small staircase, metallic and held up by a few hinges. James followed him, but Jay was still trailing behind with their arms folded. Taking to the stairs one step at a time as if almost to slow down the three of them.

This second area was even bleaker than the last. Even more empty than the entranceway where they had come in. It was just more dull grey metal with a box shape in its centre. There was no indication as to what was inside it or why it was there. Another person, a man with short curly hair and a lab coat – it was fair to say he looked a lot more like a scientist than the other guy – was running around it as if he was looking for flaws.

“Here is the only place in the world where we have been conducting research on a place called ‘The World of Ideas’”

“The World of Ideas?” James questioned.

“Ha, never heard of such a place,” said Jay.

“Very few people have. But it might be fun to give you a kind of introduction now… eh?”

“Go on.” James nodded, Jay started to shuffle away, but there was nowhere for them to run.

“The world, Earth, isn’t fully governed by scientific laws, or religion for that matter, there is a third, largely undiscovered force that dictates nature – symbols which govern the laws of understanding as we govern theirs: time, emotion, personality, purpose all tie into World of Ideas, the place of metaphor. As we come to understand these ideas on our own terms, we, in time, give back to the World of Ideas and influence it with our thoughts. Am I making myself clear?”

“No, what the –“

“Yes!” James’s lie and loud voice cut off Jay’s hesitancy.

James thought this was all nonsense, likely in the same way Jay did but coming from a person with such authority, he was inclined to perhaps not be as sceptical. That or he just really wanted this to be over and done with, how obviously uncomfortable Jay was, was playing on his mind. It was weird seeing Jay so stand-offish, even if they weren’t often in these kinds of positions.

“For as long as humanity has been creating, the World of Ideas has existed and has only increased in size for as long as we have been around.”

“Um, what has this got to do with this ‘medical research’ sir?” Jay asked.

“I was getting to that part.” The man stopped walking and turned around. He stood opposite the large cube-box as he stamped his foot onto the ground. His assistance in the lab coat ran away, shutting and locking a door on his left which banged as it shut.

“You see, the World of Ideas isn’t actually intangible. You think of symbols, metaphors – the collective unconscious as nonphysical things that only exist in your own head, your own perception. But the World of Ideas is that, a world. Another place, and there exist entities that are completely conscious, sentient embodiments of what they represent to humans on Earth.”

“So what are you gonna do, inject ghosts into our arms?” Jay jeered.

“Well, you’re close, sort of.”

The man stepped aside, and the weird cube-thing opened. It’s metallic doors, previously unseen opened to reveal some kind of cage apparatus. It omitted some kind of uncanny glow: the left side flashing a bright, sickly green and the right side flashing an obnoxious blue. The two chambers were split down the side with a divider that was made of clear glass.

This wasn’t science. Whatever it was staring hurt your head and your chest.

James covered his eyes with his hand. Jay took the chance to run only to be immediately stopped and then thrown on the ground. James lifted one of his fingers as he heard Jay hitting the floor.

“What the fuck. Dude, we didn’t sign up for this!”

“Oh, but you obviously, literally did.”

“He – He’s kinda right, Jay.” James lifted up half of his hand as he saw Jay being dragged along the ground and pulled into one half of the cage.

James fought the urge to try and run as well. Where would he go? There was nowhere to go. He couldn’t run fast enough, anyway. He cursed his weak legs, lack of body strength. If there was a time to be weak, why did it have to be now?

As he removed his hand entirely, he saw Jay being pushed into one of the sections. Still resisting but failing. They were yelling something as James’s ear started to ring out from the bright lights.

“Well, come on, you can’t stand there forever, can you?!”

This won’t take long, I’ll be out as soon as it’s over.

What he’s talking about has to be nonsense.

Nothing was going to happen.

Nothing.

“You’re right…” he walked forward and sat inside of the tiny blue coloured box. He saw Jay’s eyes looking almost tearful through the glass wall.

There was a crash door came down, making the chambers even smaller. There was barely any room to move around. The two of them pressed their hand against the glass as if searching for a way to break it.

They’ll only throw us in here for a few minutes.

Nothing is going to happen.

Nothing.

“It’s fine, Jay, don’t worry. There’s nothing to worry about just –”

“No, no, no! You’re going to get us both killed!”

The lights inside the cage grew brighter; the glass divider started to spark and flash. A string of lightning flashed across the barrier. James pulled his hand away immediately, whereas Jay pressed on it; further, they were refusing to give up.

It was small, it was confining and yet breathing in here was easy…

It was if the air was clean, fresh, James’s mind floated, and despite the apparent threat on his life, he started to feel peaceful. Not in an ‘about to die’ or ‘falling asleep’ kind of way, like a detachment. He felt his eyelids flutter, and he struggled to keep them open. He heard Jay sighing on the other side of the cage in a half joyous and half fearful motion.

James heard Jay scratching and scratching at the shield between them. He was hit with the impulse to try and stop them – as if he had to make sure whatever that was going ahead – would go ahead perfectly. James almost forgot the glass…

He pushed his full palm on it, and a jolt of pain was struck through him. On the other side, Jay had resorted to banging the glass incessantly, regardless of if they felt pain or not. Though at least James had felt peaceful for a minute or two, his heart, his guts began to tremble as his entire being was giving way to rage.

At first, it was just that, anger.

Anger which had risen from his gut and to the rest of the body.

He wasn’t angered at anything specifically. Not even the fact he was trapped. He was just angry with no reason to why.

Jay was in a similar position. There was an anger boiling inside of them, however, unlike James, they had an idea of where it came from. They had sensed that it was likely against their confinement and in the grander scheme, those who had power over them. They were partly correct.

The anger didn’t hurt. It was just a normal, human, bodily reaction. Strange, gripping in its intensity but still normal…

Despite anger starting to overwhelm the both of them, they still found themselves looking into each other’s eyes and hoping that they could both make it out alive together. They wanted to hang onto one another’s friendship.

It was funny how one tiny glass divider split everything that was familiar between them.

“James?”

“Y-Yes?”

“You’re really trying to break out, huh?”

Jay’s head twisted, it looked as if their neck might snap. “What other choice do we have eh…?”

James gasped and gritted his teeth. “I don’t know… I’m being told to wait.”

Jay smacked their hand on the frame. “Dang fuck whose telling you to wait. There has to be a way out!”

“But there is no way out! How are your hands not getting burnt off when you do that?!”

“I have to ignore it, James.”

James leant out and tapped the glass with a single finger. “Gah!” He couldn’t understand how Jay could touch that thing so flippantly, it hurt like lightning.

Jay’s head sunk low, and they started talking to themselves. “Got to get us out of here got to get us out of here got to…” they trailed off.

It felt as if the room was getting smaller and smaller, the longer that the two of them spent time in it. It was becoming squeezing, claustrophobic. In fact, you could wonder if the two of them were growing in size.

Neither of them were growing in size, not literally anyway, ideas are big, much bigger than the people who think them up in the first place.

Jay hadn’t given up yet, James was close to crying whilst still biting his tongue, rage was still overwhelming in comparison to the sadness.

However, the anger within them was becoming something more, it was growing beyond a human emotion of resentment. Ideas staring out across their opposite… this was more than mild discomfort.

They could also no longer think about a desire to escape, or a desire to see themselves and their friend safe, they were wrestling with the ideals in their minds.

This was when the pain started.

Neither of them understood that ideas could not doubt their foundation. Rejecting an idea that was in essence, a part of themselves was antithetical was painful as they were rejecting their own existence – dangerous since it meant that they didn’t believe in themselves. Their form would punish them for it.

The two of them found themselves flooded with ideas that they hadn’t even considered before. Maybe they had heard whispered these concepts to them, but it’s not things they remembered or things they would consider realistic.

Knowing an idea, embracing and accepting an idea was one thing. Not even the people that agreed with radical politics would want to literally become them though.

In fact, the lack of knowledge between James and Jay had for what they were embodying made them almost completely ignorant as to what they were thinking actually meant.

Jay wasn’t all that scared or disturbed by what they were thinking of. They were unusual, sure, but not hateful, at least not to Jay. They saw the world in a new way, a very new way.

James, however, had many reasons to be scared. He wasn’t seeing the world ‘in a new way’ exactly, nothing about it felt new actually. He was starting to be unable to tell if he was weak or strong. It felt like he was both and almost as if Jay was to blame for it.

Jay was involuntarily grinning. Jay started to laugh. They shut their eyes and were thrown back. The last time that their hand would touch the glass. “Wait what is…?”

James felt a jolt of pain go through his chest as he started to push out the more hateful thoughts in his brain. He was still looking at his friend, he was still looking at Jay. He didn’t want to hate Jay, but what choice did he have?

“I don’t know…”

James would have fallen to the floor if he had room to fall. He thought he had a heart attack: but his eyes ached, his throat, limbs ached as he tried to push these thoughts out his head. They kept coming back, and they wouldn’t leave.

This place, this environment, this was all wrong. He looked out and stared at Jay, their quadrant what opposed his…

James knew it, he felt it, this was Jay and Jay was his worse enemy.

He couldn’t accept this, amongst all the other ideas he would consider ‘horrible’ bobbing about in his mind – rejecting Jay was causing him the most pain. He felt his entire body rattle as he was losing consciousness. Even as Jay’s face was blurring to him, he still wanted to hang onto it, James had to hold onto something, what seemed to be the last part of his normal life fading away from him.

“Jay I…”

“James you…”

“I…”

“You…?”

“I hate you.”

“Good, I hate you too.”

“More than anything?”

“More than anything!”

-

_The entities were removed from the ‘World of Ideas’ simulation apparatus exactly two hours after they were placed inside. Despite the physical and sensory deprivation, their once very human bodies were put under, the both of them emerged looking perfectly healthy. Despite not clearly looking tired or hungry, they still begged for food once they emerged. Subject #6192 (Ancom) demanded sustenance, whereas #Subject 2212 (Nazi) pleaded for it to the people he called ‘his superiors’._

_Ancom had become more and more vocal day by day – expressing a ‘hatred’ for being here and even an aggression. After a difficult decision, we considered releasing Ancom from the facility but however decided that Ancom was likely too much of a danger to the public._

_We have taken Ancom away from the other Ideology, we see if we can try and work out how to reverse the conversion if that is not possible we may have to find a way to dispose of Ancom if that is really feasible. There are no reports of an Ideology, or any entity from the World of Ideas dying or ceasing to exist on Earth._

_Nazi has appeared to deteriorate. Nazi appears to have lost any of the will that they came with are succumbing to blind obedience. Nazi has expressed no such desire to leave the complex and had often asked us for what orders that we can give to them. We believed that Nazi did show some kind of emotion when Ancom was taken away, though exactly how Nazi did feel was hard to tell._

_Nazi had told us that it had made Nazi feel powerful, but the tone of Nazi’s voice implied the opposite. What this means for the hypothesis of the original study remains to be seen._

_It has been roughly two weeks now: we are still running tests on Ancom and Nazi is growing more and more distant from both the researcher and themselves. Nazi’s reactions appearing robotic or automatic. Nazi still hasn’t refused to eat, but it’s not like an idea can starve themselves to death._

-


End file.
